Centre of the universe

When he was able to walk unaided, Eir agreed Loki was well enough to attend the war councils. They needed his knowledge of Thanos' army and his strengths and weaknesses. Thor came to tell them they could go no further without it. He'd been sent by Odin, and Frigga's disapproving glare told Alex that using him as a messenger was deliberate, because it meant the queen had no way of reproaching Odin for rushing Loki's recovery.

For several days Alex saw little of Loki; she waited for him one evening in the library, as he'd asked her to, but when he arrived he looked fit only for sleep. She sent him on his way, retiring to her chambers in relief. Then she ensured she was in the safety of her rooms long before Loki would be free from the meetings. Instead, she resumed her perusal of the archives during the day. Some of the documents hadn't been looked at in years, leaving her hands and clothes streaked in dust when she left each evening. She trained with Sif and dined with Thor and the Warriors Three, though she barely saw Frigga, who tended to Loki when he rested. He'd been moved from the healing ward to his own chambers, and she had no intention of venturing there.

If she hadn't seen for herself how much he lacked energy, she'd have believed he was sending the dreams that plagued her through some brand of magic he'd never revealed to her before. As it was, she could only assume being reminded of their tryst on Dokkalfarheim was why she woke every morning, tangled in the sheets and coated in sweat, evidence of how restless she'd been in sleep.

She distracted herself with the archives. Seeing Loki in Jotun form had interested her in the frost giants. She wondered how they differed from humans or Aesir, beyond the obvious physical differences. Did Loki's proficiency with magic come from them? So far everything she'd found painted them to be savages, but the material was strongly biased, written by chroniclers who were all too aware of Asgard's superior might and technology. She didn't have much luck in finding unbiased works about the Jotun, apart from a strange spelling of their name in a much older dialect of the Aesir tongue, one she couldn't read.

After a week of this fragile respite, she returned to her chambers one afternoon, looking forward to filling the enormous bathtub and soaking until she her skin wrinkled. Instead, she found Loki waiting at her door.

"I hoped you'd return sooner rather than later," he said as she approached. "I finally have some free time."

She stopped a few feet away. "You look better than you did." His face was completely healed and scarless, and a hint of a flush graced his pale cheeks. The way he'd shed the many layers of armour for a simple tunic and breeches helped, complimenting the more boyish appearance.

"Thank you." He seemed pleased that she noticed. "I know you have no intention of allowing me into your chambers, so I would ask you to walk with me."

"What do you want, Loki?" Her voice sounded tired and tight to her own ears. Well, damn him for invading her sleep. Even if he didn't control her dreams it was exactly what he wanted.

"Time. Just your time and your company."

Experience told her she wasn't getting through the door if he didn't get his way. "We can go to the gardens," she offered, and he beamed.

"I'm sure Eir would approve of the fresh air after I have spent so many days locked in stifling chambers."

As they walked she noticed a stiffness to his movements, not quite a limp but not his usual confident stride either. So he wasn't completely healed. Given how quickly the Asgardians—Aesir—usually healed, it framed just how severe his injuries had been. That, or he was diverting his energies elsewhere, as he had been when he sustained her on life in Manhattan. That had slowed his healing. She didn't even want to examine that possibility yet.

The gardens were quiet at this time of day, and he led her to a bench that gave them a view over the golden rooftops of the city.

"I have been completely pardoned," he began. "The council agreed it this morning, when I finished giving them all the information I had. Eir and Thor detailed my wounds and it appears they suffice as punishment."

She wasn't sure what to say. She'd been expecting this all along: Loki was far more valuable to the war effort if he was kept on their side willingly, rather than being locked away to have secrets teased out of him. Odin would have argued this value to the rest of the council, and Loki doubtless knew it before he left to play his trick on Thanos.

"You don't seem particularly happy about this, Asta."

She stifled a sigh and closed her eyes. "I'm happy you won't be locked away: you needed to be punished for what you did on Earth, but what Thanos did to you was enough. So I agree with them."

He was silent for a moment, and when he spoke again his voice was filled with cold frustration. "You are determined to give me no quarter, to give me no real chance to win your affections again."

"Loki—" She opened her eyes but kept her gaze out to the ocean.

"How fair is a bargain if it is entirely one-sided?"

"I didn't even realise we had a bargain. You made a vow; it's a completely different thing."

"And part of that vow is I would court you again. You knew what that would involve. Instead, you hide away from me, seeking out the company of those who would happily see me dead. You think I haven't noticed the bond my brother has forged with you?"

"Please tell me you're not doing this." She resisted the urge to bury her head in her hands, instead twisting her fingers together in her lap.

"Doing what, exactly?"

"Getting jealous of your brother. I can have friends, you know. If that pisses you off, we definitely have no future."

"No, of course you would seek Thor out," he spat. "As if I haven't spent my life in his shadow, watching people pass me by so they could bask in his presence. This is why I kept you from Asgard for so long—so I wouldn't lose you to him."

"For pity's sake! I don't have any interest in Thor in the way you're thinking. He's friendly and uncomplicated, and that's what I need in a friend right now."

"Why would you ever need another friend? For years I was—"

"The centre of my universe? That's not normal, to have so much focused on one person."

"Why? You were the only friend I needed—the only friend I ever really had." He leaned in close, staying just outside her comfort zone, green eyes filled with hurt and anger.

"You're wrong. Thor wants to be your friend. He's not trying to poison me against you; he wants me to love you as much as he does."

"How can you? How can I compete?"

"I'm not asking you to compete with anyone! I'm not choosing between you and any other man—I'm deciding whether I become a footnote in your story, or to choose my own. Because that's what a life with you would reduce me to."

His fierce stare softened. "No. I wouldn't allow that. You tell me what life you want to live, and I will bend the universe to create it."

"I want my family." Her voice sounded so small to her own ears: such a small request, seeming so petty against the backdrop of the world around her.

"Who I would never prevent you from seeing. Besides, you can have family here. My mother and Thor already accept you, and the king hardly matters since he never has time for any of us. You know I don't really belong here myself; with you I would no longer be a cuckoo in the nest. You would be my family."

During his last words he'd taken her hands, the familiar callouses against her fingers making her heart stutter. The knot in her stomach uncoiled, becoming altogether more pliant and unsettling at the loneliness in his face. It was something she'd known for years, from the times he'd spoken with such bitterness about Thor and how he was overlooked on Asgard. He'd always believed it was down to who he was, then to find out it was because of what he was…

But to be that for him was a daunting concept, especially outmatched as she was. Could she really bear the weight of all his emotions, even the darkest? It seemed a horrible burden, one she didn't want, yet she was frightened of the consequences of leaving him to his loneliness too.

She shied away from him, wrapping her arms around herself and returning to the grand view of the landscape.

"I know I've held the place you had in my childhood against you," she said. "Maybe that's made it seem like I regret you ever being part of my life, and that's not true. You gave me a childhood most people would kill to experience. What I regret is how you saw me as a pet."

"Not a pet," he protested. "At least, not for very long. It didn't matter to me how young you were, not when you made me feel like I ruled the universe. Even now, you see me as a truly am—in that monstrous form—and you don't flee."

"It's just skin."

"Few people in this realm believe that."

"See, you're still blind to how good Thor is to you. He didn't care either."

"After all this, you try to heal the wounds between me and my brother." He was half-frustrated, half-touched by this.

"He's a good man. He cares about you more than you're willing to admit," she insisted. "There are people like him, that if you just let them in—"

"No. However much Thor cares for me, he still judges me. He wants me to change, to become more like him. You never asked that of me. I would happily sell a limb to get that back."

"One of your own limbs?"

"Probably not."

She laughed, and he turned to her with wistful eyes. "I miss that, too. I haven't seen you laugh in so long."

"I have very little to laugh about these days."

"It seemed at one time you never stopped laughing."

"You made me laugh. You made me happy." It was so easy to confess these things with the surreal vista of Asgard below them, when she wasn't looking at his face.

"And now?"

"Now, I never know what you're going to do next. I never have, but I also never expected you to be capable of the things I've witnessed you do lately. It's not an adventure anymore."

She chanced a glance at him, and his lips had formed a thin line. "You are uncertain of me."

"Always."

Loki fell silent, staring out over the gardens. "You thought I didn't notice you," he said eventually. "When you tried to woo me."

"Come on, Loki. You didn't notice me at all. You thought I had a schoolgirl crush."

"Not then—later. When you left your parents' home. You had less time for me and I tried to give you space: to study, to spend time with your new friends, to dance and carouse. You became a woman. I saw you, then." He caught her chin gently with two fingers and turned her to face him again. "I saw who you'd become and I wanted you. I watched you tempt other men then push them away, seeking out my company instead. I already knew what a wretch I was to even contemplate binding you to me. Worse, I risked losing the only friendship I had ever known that wasn't tainted by politics and the Allfather's machinations. In the end, you came willingly—you forced my hand—but I lost you anyway. The universe was a cold and lonely place when I realised you would no longer be by my side."

She realised only when he stopped talking that she'd leaned in closer as he spoke, entranced by the movement of his lips, the way they formed the words she wanted to hear. That was the terrifying thing: she liked what he was saying. It was a much more satisfying idea than merely being his pet—it gave her life and all the memories tied up in that time period some meaning beyond being a pathetic lovesick girl.

There was one way to test him. "Do you truly mean everything you just said?" If she trusted Odin's magic, his response could not be a lie.

"Yes. To remove all lingering doubt: I meant every word. I felt as strongly about you as you did about me." His breath brushed her lips as he spoke, they were so close, his words pulling her in with a hypnotic tug. The dizzying spell of his eyes had a similar effect, but she couldn't look away. "There's the truth of it. I love you."

He tipped his head and found herself doing the same thing, following a familiar routine for them. Her skin was alight with electricity, her mind still and quiet. She knew she should move, that she shouldn't allow this to happen, but it was if he were a magnet and she was caught in his field, unable and unwilling to break free.

A shout from outside the garden yanked her out of the moment. She heard the scuttle of feet and playful taunts pass by, the sounds of children at play, and she pushed herself back to the other side of the bench. Loki watched her move, frustration lacing his features, but he didn't pursue her.

"Thank you for your honesty," he said, in that same hypnotic voice. "I hope I have left you feeling less uncertain of me."

She dipped her head in a sharp nod, avoiding the avid affection in his stare.

"And you will uphold your end of the bargain?"

"Loki—"

"Please."

The single word—one she didn't think she'd ever heard him say before—made her pause. "Okay."

"May I accompany you back to your chambers?"

She didn't trust her voice, and as they walked back, he took her arm, resting his hand in the crook of her elbow. Despite the cloth between them she could feel the heat of his palm. When he took his leave the sense memory remained, bringing with it the unbidden recollections of body heat from dreams and the past she was running from.

She needed to be stronger than this. She'd known he would make promises and use pretty words to bespell her. She'd expected him to make the confessions he did. Yet, expecting something and it happening were very different things. His confessions—words and emotions—tugged at something inside her, appealing to the part of her she thought she'd cast aside. She owed him nothing, no measure of fairness after all the tricks he'd played, but the lonely boy under the many masks he wore was real. That Loki was the one cracking the ice around her heart. If she wasn't careful, he'd work his way back inside her.

The problem lay in those moments where she wasn't so sure that was such a bad thing anymore.

A/N: Thank you all for your continued kindness. Can't believe we're at chapter 30! I have to go on a family trip this weekend (I moved out eight years ago, aren't I supposed to be free of this stuff?) so I can't make any promises about when the next chapter will be up - perhaps over the weekend, perhaps early next week.

As ever - reviewers gets teasers.